The Truth About Forever
by ongreenergrasses
Summary: Such a love comes only once in a lifetime, even an extremely long one. So what happens when you lose them? Because you will, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.


**Written a very, very long time ago. The spacing looks awful on here, so if you want the full effect I urge you to copy and paste into a Word doc to read. All thanks go to my brilliant partner in crime, Ashley, for reading this piece and saying (here I quote) "post that bitch. It's beautiful."  
Written to "Turn to Stone" by Ingrid Michaelson. I really recommend listening to this song while reading. I got a lot of elements from it.  
Disclaimer: It's not enough to borrow the characters, the plots, the everything from RTD. No, I have to borrow a title from Sarah Dessen, too. *headdesk*  
Warnings: If you've not seen Torchwood through CoE, this won't make as much of an impact, but I'm assured that it's still sad. Also, I seem to have this fixation with second-person POV. If you don't like, don't read.**

Keep moving.

Love, be loved.

Then you die.

You always die.

And you always come back.

They run as far away as they can, as fast as they can, because it is terrifying to see you die and then open your eyes and breathe again. Or they promise to spend their eternity with you. Either way, It never works out.

So you keep moving. Because if you stay, you get hurt.

That's the way it is.

That's the way it's always been.

…

Then you met the Welshman.

…

He begged you for the job. You got so pissed off you nearly ran him over.

But then there was the pterodactyl. It had potential for so many things. (And secretly, you've always loved dinosaurs.)

So you went with him to that warehouse to try and get the bloody thing, which, needless to say, didn't really work. Nothing you do ever works properly.

You fell down right on top of him. At first, you were a little worried. He seemed like a sturdy man, but having someone fall from at least 10 feet on top of you is really quite painful and can damage you very badly, no matter how sturdy you are.

But you didn't have time to worry, because then the pterodactyl finally felt the effects of the tranquilizer and went plummeting down and was about to land on top of BOTH of you if you hadn't started rolling away very fast. Which, for some reason, made you both start to laugh.

And he ended up on top of you.

No matter what everyone else says, your looks do not matter when you get a job at Torchwood. (Well…maybe a little bit.)

But as soon as he was on top of you, you knew.

Just the feel of his body on yours.

This was really the man you had waited for.

You had waited for him for hundreds and hundreds of years, scouring whole galaxies just to find someone like him.

You didn't consciously know it yet, of course. But the back of your mind knew. Oh, it knew.

Otherwise, you wouldn't have given him that job.

…

You suppose that in the beginning, you didn't treat him so well. You've always been like that. It's hard for you to accept people. It's hard for you to feel for them.

At least, you pretend it is.

Goddammit, you fucking loved him from the first second you ever saw him, but you were too much of a coward to admit it. You try to hide your feelings. But they always come out in the end.

You gave him all those chances, all that benefit of the doubt, because you didn't want to believe that he had done something so horrible. The worst bit was that it wasn't the cyber threat posed by the girl that made you the most upset. It wasn't that he'd lied. It wasn't that his actions could have killed everyone, and had already hurt more than a few of your team.

It was that he'd done it all for someone else.

…

You didn't want to believe that he had used you. You didn't want to think that he had lied to you, stolen from you, used your technology, used you, all for a little human girl.

And then you got angry.

Years and years and years ago, oh, so many years ago, the other boys were scared of you because of that temper. You got pissed off so easily. And when you really get angry, you are terrifying. You know it, too. When you're angry, people get scared. They usually back down.

But he wouldn't back down.

Because he loved her.

The things you said. The things you threatened to do.

You would have killed him.

Your finger, curling around the trigger. You were so close to shooting him. So close.

And then Gwen's hand on your arm. It brought you back. Eventually it made you stop.

Not because you would be guilty. Because at that moment, if things had gone differently, if you had killed him, you know you wouldn't have cared.

It was for Gwen's sake. She was your best friend. And you wanted her to be proud of you. To be proud to call you her friend.

But you might as well have killed him.

You killed the girl he loved, the girl that he hid from all of you, the girl that he risked everything and then some for. You killed her body, then went and killed an innocent girl, whose only crime was having a cyberwoman's brain inside her body. You killed them both. You broke his heart.

That was the first time he died.

…

Neither of you ever apologized for what you'd done. Neither of you were ever sorry.

After it all ended, though, you went right back to loving him.

Not because it was all over and you gave him another chance. You aren't that merciful. That forgiving.

No, you saw how deeply he could love. That silly Welshman. He loved with all his heart and goddammit, the way he felt things. And like a silly little teenage girl, you wanted him to feel that way about you. It was so selfish of you.

But it was true.

You wanted him to love you. You wanted it more than you'd ever wanted anything before.

And just like a teenage girl who whines enough, eventually you got what you wanted.

…

You didn't realize that he felt that way about you until Gwen told you what he did when you died. When they all thought you were really dead, and to be honest, when you did, too.

You thought you would regret what you did. You just couldn't help yourself. You saw him standing there, young, beautiful, alive, everything you thought you had ever wanted and looking so happy to see you, and you just reached out and kissed him.

You thought that you had made the biggest mistake of your life when you did that. You thought you'd scared him off.

And then Gwen took you out for a pint to get the color back in your cheeks. Those Welsh and their silly pints.

It was after both of you had had a few drinks that her tongue started to slip. She probably thought you were so drunk that you wouldn't remember anything she said in the morning, and it's true, alcohol hits you fast and hard. You're almost scared to drink it.

But you were celebrating. You were still alive.

And she told you what he'd done.

She says that after she told you, after she told you about how he straightened all the papers on your desk and then buried his face in your coat and started to cry, you choked on your pint and she had to smack you on the back and eventually take you out into the alley, where you coughed for about ten more minutes before you threw up all over her new trainers.

You hope Gwen's safe. You hope that she's done what you told her to do.

But Gwen is stubborn. And she listens to nobody but herself.

Not even you.

…

You were so happy that he loved you. You had a smile on your face that wouldn't go away. Nothing could shake it off. When they found you, bloody and broken in the car park, Tosh said that you were still smiling.

He was cautious. Afraid. Twenty-first century humans and their tendency to label things kept him reserved. But after you told him one night, when you were both just on the verge of sleep, that all those labels will go away in his lifetime, he lost some of that abandon.

And then he started to flirt with you in front of Owen, Tosh, Gwen.

And then they started to tease you both, in the way that only friends ever will.

And then he loved you enough that he didn't care.

…

It was selfish of you.

You know it's dangerous to love people. Your love always kills them. You can't hold things sacred because they are lost too easily.

You knew all along and you still loved him.

…

It was so much better than anything you had felt before. And you had loved so many times, so many people, that you hadn't thought it could get any better.

But it did.

For a year it was absolute heaven. You were both so happy.

And then it happened.

You knew it would some day. You knew, you both knew, that forever, at Torchwood, dies in its infancy.

But it didn't make you ready. You couldn't…you couldn't see it coming.

…

That week went so badly. Badly, even, for you, which is saying something. You got killed, got in trouble for something you'd done almost half a century ago, which forced everyone else to go on the run. They risked everything to get you back. Eventually, you had to make a choice. Stand up to the 456, or back down and let them have what they wanted.

You were going to back down. You knew it, too. They all knew it. After all they'd done for you, you were going to let them down.

But he convinced you to go back to being you. To being your old, swaggering, pompous self, the one who stood up and told people no. The one who had the conviction that he was always right, all of the time, no matter what.

He wanted to come with you.

…

You couldn't say no. You could never say no to anything he asked you. And if, just for a second, you managed to deny him something, anything, he would look at you. He'd just look at you. And you melted right then and there. Oh, you knew how to act and put up a fight for a little while longer, but as soon as he looked at you, you knew inside that it was all over. That he'd get what he wanted.

You spoiled him but you didn't care. You loved it. Every minute of it.

You loved the smile on his face when he got what he wanted. He didn't let himself act like his age often, tried to act grown up for you and not gloat when he got his way, but sometimes he couldn't suppress it. He just couldn't.

He had that smile on his face when you left together.

You never saw him smile again.

…

It was going so well at first. Everything folded out neatly, perfectly, well, neatly and perfectly for you. Which is to say, not so neat. Or perfect.

But you were happy with the way things were going. You thought you had a chance.

You were so stupid.

…

You didn't do your research. If Tosh had been there, she would have smiled that little knowing smile of hers and turned to her computers, beginning to draw up plans and facts and figures at your words.

Research can't be underestimated.

It killed him.

You killed him.

…

It took you too long to realize. And then you did understand what they meant. What was going to happen to him. To both of you.

And as soon as you realized that, you bolted. You ran out and yelled to some official-looking men to stop the air, to cut it all off, but your mind wasn't in it. You were trying to protect yourself from the feelings starting to worm their way in at the back of your brain.

You didn't care about yourself. You cared about him. He needed to get out. You needed to get him out.

You didn't want to cut off the air.

You wanted to cut off those feelings. Stop them before they took over.

Being the boss gave you something to do. It worked so well. Took your mind away from what was really happening.

For a little bit.

…

You always were scared to face your feelings.

You were a coward.

…

You had let yourself feel things once before, a long time ago. But it hurt you so much, left you so broken, that you decided that you were braver, stronger without them. So you locked them up. Kept them in check.

Until that day, those last ten minutes.

You tried to save him. You tried everything you could. You were so desperate.

You took back everything you'd said. You'd let them have the children, all of them and more, you'd deliver them all yourself, you'd lie to the whole world, let them take away ten percent, twelve percent, twenty percent, you didn't care. Just keep him alive. Keep him alive, keep him there next to you so that when this was all over, you could go back home together and laugh about what had happened, go to bed late after takeout and sex and champagne and wake up the next day with his head right next to yours, for as long as you could stand each other.

You didn't say so, but in your head, you were begging them to have some fucking mercy. Let him live a normal life. He was too young. You would let them kill you permanently if it would save him. You'd been around for almost a thousand years anyway. You almost wanted to die.

You wouldn't be able to live with yourself if he died because of you.

…

You were begging. You, reduced to begging. Everything was wrong, twisted. The world had all but stopped turning. You were crying, so weak, so broken, in front of them. You pleaded for them to let him survive. You were ready to give up anything, everything, as long as they let him survive.

And they didn't.

He died.

Twenty-seven years old.

He died in your arms.

It was all your fault.

…

When Gwen found you and you opened your eyes, you didn't come back with a gasp.

…

And now you're here. Across the stars and running, running because you're scared to look back. Scared to turn around and face your feelings again.

You've lost everything. And what you didn't lose, you ruined.

It doesn't matter.

Nothing matters any more.

He's gone.

You're gone.

…

You're not you.

…

You were so stupid to fall in love with that Welshman.

You killed him.

And now you can't bear it. The guilt, the helplessness, the agony.

This is agony.

…

You don't care about anything any more.

…

You killed Steven too, like you're trying to get HIM back.

And the worst part is that you don't care. What's a little more blood on your hands going to hurt after what you've done? The worst will never come off.

You've killed so many people. You've seen so many people you love die.

But this is the worst. The worst of all time.

He told you, in your arms as he died, that you'd forget him. You would have smacked him if he hadn't been dying.

It's different with him. He didn't believe you when you said that it was different. You were drunk, after all. Very drunk. So drunk that when you stumbled into his flat at three o' clock in the morning, all hands and lips and tongues, you only made it to the couch before he grabbed you by the lapels of your coat and pulled you down on top of him.

But you were telling the truth. What you felt – it nearly killed you. Because it was so wonderful.

And then when it ended, it hurt so badly.

It was love. Unconditional, painful, idiotic, wonderful love.

You loved him so much.

You won't forget him. Not now, not ever.

…

And when you hear of the Miracle, your very first thought is that it came too late.


End file.
